Amy Chozick will have to do a lot more before I forgive her for her chip-on-the-shoulder Dowd-y coverage of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in the Times.
How often did I want to smack her? Gee, pretty much every day she was in print.
A couple of days ago, Chozick’s “Is San Antonio Our Political Future?” — a question so sweeping I can answer it with a “huh?” — did inadvertently explain why her Clinton coverage was so small-townish and snarky: she comes from San Antonio. (Oh, c’mon. To a New Yorker, almost anywhere else is a small town. And Texas?) And she stayed in Texas to go to UT. And earlier worked for the Wall Street Journal. (Maureen Dowd, the progenitor of superficial style instead of substance in campaign coverage, is from D.C. And went to Catholic U.)
OK, but more important, this Chozick article is really an extended interview with Julián Castro, who just filed paperwork to run for the presidency. And here she is reasonable, heartfelt and right.
I remember clearly being knocked out by Castro’s keynote speech at the 2012 Democratic Party convention.
Later, around the time Hillary was considered certain to be the next Democratic presidential candidate, and debate arose about her candidacy and her potential vice presidential pick, I said — out loud but only to my room — “Julián Castro. She should chose him and that would seal the election.”
I liked Tim Kaine but I’m still wishing it had been Castro. So now I’m thinking about him again.
P.S. I just read Castro’s speech at the above link. It holds up. Once again, I got teary. Read it.